The present invention relates to receivers, and, more particularly, to improved diversity receivers.
Orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) transmission and reception is an established technique that is used in many types of broadcast systems. OFDM has been adopted as the modulation method in a number of systems for terrestrial digital video broadcasting (DVB-T). The DVB-T specification (ETSI EN 300 744) provides further details of the transmission properties and is incorporated herein by reference.
OFDM is a way in which information is transmitted over a large number of separate frequency carriers. The information to be transmitted is split up, and a portion of the information is sent on each carrier. An OFDM receiver receives the portions of information from each of the carriers and recombines them to reproduce the original signal. OFDM signals have properties which make them very resilient, particularly in poor channel environments. However, improvements are still sought which can further improve OFDM reception and transmission. This is particularly useful for mobile and portable receivers.
In some environments, such as those subject to multipath reflection or shadowing, some carriers may be received with low power. In these cases, diversity receivers may provide an improvement of around 3 dB to 6 dB, the latter figure referring to cases where the communication channel is under severe multipath fading and in mobile reception. A diversity receiver effectively comprises two or more separate receivers, or diversity branches, each with its own antenna. Each set of received carriers from each diversity branch is then combined using one of three common combining methods; maximal ratio combining (MRC), carrier selection (CS), or equal gain combining (EGC), in an attempt to produce a more robust set of carriers from which demodulation can take place.
Pure maximal ratio combining would be ideal if the noise level is the same in both diversity branches, or if it can be reliably determined. In addition, precise knowledge of the channel levels at each carrier is needed. In mobile terminals, the signal distortion is not only additive noise, but also from Doppler effects. A problem also exists in that estimating the power of low level carriers is less precise than for higher power carriers. Errors in power estimation degrades the performance of pure maximal ratio combining. Doppler effects are also more dominant with low power carriers.